Arter mustn't change his game

I felt the football pundits on Match of the Day were a bit over critical of the challenge that Harry Arter made on Joe Allen in the Stoke City game. Eddie Howe openly defended his player for his intentions to get the ball and his timing that contributed to a hard tackle but did not injure his opponent, despite the Stoke City protests about the manner of the challenge.

We love Harry how he is.

At the time on first viewing ,I thought it was a typical Harry Arter crunch tackle and like most fans in the Main stand was annoyed that the referee was going to punish Harry, despite him getting the ball. Having seen the challenge though again on video you can see why Paul Tierney couldn't let it go, as a few inches higher and it would have probably been a leg breaker with studs showing and Arter having both feet off the ground. I think the referee knew that the challenges were getting out of hand though, as he had not acted earlier when Marko Arnautovic and Adam Smith had been trying to take lumps out of each other. Tierney no doubt thought that by giving out the card to Arter it might calm matters down, but I felt the ill-temper only grew during the game and it was highlighted when Arnautovic went down, having ran into Adam Smith, and his reaction when the first goal went in for Stoke City as he goaded the home fans. 

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Such reactions only stir up the crowd and the players and I have no doubt it was a tactic of Mark Hughes to wind-up the Cherries in any way his side could,and I'm only glad that his way of playing did not win the day. Out of all AFCB's players though it is not so surprising that Harry Arter wanted to get back with some crunching tackles on the Stoke City midfielders, as they were getting away with things and to me it was some weak refereeing that contributed to the players upping their aggressive manner in the tackles. The pundits who criticised Arter don't take such things into consideration of course, and they just judge the incident as it stands, so I'm not surprised that Arter was said to be a 'lucky boy' on BBC's Match of the Day. 

Eddie Howe though stood by his central midfielder and there is a difference when their is intent to ham and a clear desire to win the ball. What I don't want is Arter changing his game and trying not to impose himself on games, because of the reaction he got in this game. Take the competitiveness out of Arter's game and he would be half the player he is and we don't want that.

In other news, Lewis Cook has been called up to the England U20 World Cup squad and will not play for AFCB again this season.